Distributors

Around one in four IT, telecoms and financial services companies experienced a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack in the last 12 months.

However, Kaspersky Lab findings claim that while just under half (47 per cent) of financial businesses accept that they are prime targets, IT and telecoms companies don’t think they are any more at risk than other sectors, which could be leaving them vulnerable.

The study found that, overall, a third of companies (36 per cent) believe they are likely targets for a DDoS attack, increasing only slightly for IT (40 per cent) and telecoms businesses (38 per cent).

One in six (16 per cent) of those surveyed has actually been hit, but this figure rises to one in four for companies in the IT (21 per cent), financial services (22 per cent), and telecoms (24 per cent) sectors.

“DDoS attacks have become one of the most popular weapons in the cybercriminal arsenal, used to extort money, disrupt operations or damage reputations, and also to distract attention from another cyber-attack being carried out at the same time,” adds Evgeny Vigovsky, Head of DDoS Protection, Kaspersky Lab.

“Nearly 75 per cent of businesses have said that DDoS attacks against their companies corresponded with other security incidents.”

Yet the study shows that many companies lack awareness of DDoS and are unsure how to stop them or limit their impact.

Only 52 per cent of companies feel well-informed about DDoS attacks and just 53 per cent know how to prevent or mitigate them, rising to 61 per cent of those in financial services and telecoms.

“In some cases, DDoS attacks are a smokescreen for cyber-theft or result in exorbitant ransom demands.

“That is why vulnerable sectors need to be extra-vigilant about security and be ready to deal with DDoS attacks. They need to build their understanding of the threat and choose the best protection against it.

“The days of DDoS attacks being an operational frustration that just resulted in some downtime are long over.”

ARN Distributor Directory

ARN Vendor Directory

Slideshows

​Inside the new HP Customer Welcome Centre in Sydney…

HP unveiled its new Customer Welcome Centre (CWC) in Sydney this week, following on more than a year after the vendor opened the doors of its Experience Centre in Melbourne (MEC). The new space offers on-site HP technicians and visiting channel partners the ability to reconfigure equipment and put together tailored solutions based on the needs of individual end clients or target vertical markets. The centre can also be booked by customers and partners for meetings, events, workshops, seminars, and training. Photos by HP.

Zscaler Australia toasts the channel at Xmas drinks

Zscaler recently hosted its partner update and Christmas drinks event in Australia where more than 20 partners attended the event at the QT hotel in the Sydney. The event provided a forum for the company to update its Australian partners on the company's strategy for cloud security in the year ahead. It was also a great opportunity for the company to introduce Sean Kopelke as country manager for A/NZ. The event ended with Christmas drinks and a celebration of momentum gained in 2016.

IN PICTURES: ​Nutanix X Tours

Nutanix recently held two ‘X Tours’, which brought the company’s flagship event .NEXT to Brisbane and Melbourne. Customers and partners got a firsthand look at the new era of IT and exposure to the potential of the Nutanix Enterprise Cloud platform. Both events featured key speakers both from Nutanix and its partners.

iasset.com is a channel management ecosystem that automates all major aspects of the entire sales, marketing and service process, including data tracking, integrated learning, knowledge management and product lifecycle management.

Copyright 2016 IDG Communications. ABN 14 001 592 650. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part in any form or medium without express written permission of IDG Communications is prohibited.